The Society of St. Vincent de Paul as an emerging social phenomenon in mid-nineteenth century Ireland.

A voluntary organisation inspired by the motivation of Christian charitable action which has - despite the competition of more sophisticated organisations and the development of the welfare state - survived for over a century and a half, deserves attention. The fundamental work of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul was, and is, visitation of 'the poor' in their own homes. While this is a reasonable notion in present times, the lifestyle of the first members of the Society would have normally precluded such contact with the class that the nineteenth century Poor Laws branded as 'paupers'. However there were also religious, economic and political factors in the establishment of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Ireland in 1844. In the aftermath of the granting of Catholic Emancipation, and in the rise of the 'Young Ireland' movement, the evolution of such a grouping comprised in the main of young educated and articulate Catholic middle, or upper-class, men was a phenomenon which, in this dissertation, has now been appraised from primary and secondary material. Perhaps the most significant impact on the growth of the organisations was the Great Famine - which occurred within twelve month's of the Society's foundation, and caused the embryonic body to develop at a pace that could not have been anticipated. There was a subsequent hiatus, which took the form of a re-entrenchment following this calamitous event, but the Society subsequently extended its range of activities to encompass educational and allied projects. This thesis found that the establishment of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in' Ireland was more than a social phenomenon reflective of mid-nineteenth century philanthropic or altruistic awareness